By the Numbers…

Well, here we are. Thirty five days from Election Day. Five weeks from tonight, I’ll probably be sitting where I am now blogging about the returns as states close their precincts. Before this point, I didn’t care too much about the polling data. It was all pretty worthless before because we were too far away from November.
That’s not true anymore. We’re in the homestretch and the recent ABC News/Washington Post poll is most interesting. I will be the first to admit that I am not a trained pollster, nor am I an expert. This is an interpretation of the data as an interested observer in politics looking at current and trended data.
Now, I’m no big fan of numbers, and I’m sure you aren’t either. I’ve tried to not insert too many because I don’t want your eyes to glaze over. I’ve included four sections from the sample that are especially important.
The first question that caught my eye was this one:
If the 2004 presidential election were being held today, would you vote for? (registered voters)
Bush/Cheney 51%
Kerry/Edwards 44%
Nader/Camejo 2%
DK/No Opinion 2%
Now, while this poll is registered voters, it does show some interesting underlying data. The likely voter respondents from the same sample–which are typically more telling–are almost the exact same numbers.
If the 2004 presidential election were being held today, would you vote for? Which candidate are you leaning toward? (Net Leaned Vote, Likely Voters)
Bush/Cheney 51%
Kerry/Edwards 45%
Nader/Camejo 1%
DK/No Opinion 2%
So, Nader loses a point, and Kerry gains one. The number that barely changes is the gap. Bush retails the same number–a majority–and Kerry closes the gap by a single digit. That’s all. The numbers grow even more interesting.
Regardless of how you might vote, please tell me if you have a favorable or unfavorable impression of (NAME) or perhaps you don’t know enough to say.

That’s a pretty significant gap between Bush and Kerry. The Kerry numbers trended over the summer and compared to Primary season tell an even more important story, though.

Now, again, I’m no expert but it sure seems that Kerry’s been in a free-fall since right after his convention. March was right after the Primaries were pretty much decided. The July number was right before the Democrat National Convention, and the August 1 number, immediately following. The August 29 number was at the start of the Republican National Convention. The first September number is just after Labor Day, the ceremonial start of the last leg of the campaign. The last number was this past Sunday.
It shows a steady decline and a loss of fourteen points. That’s not the kind of momentum of someone who’s going to win the White House. It almost seems tied to this number:
Who do you trust to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq? (registered voters)
George W. Bush 53%
John Kerry 40%
This is what this election comes down to. Regardless of what you see in the press…regardless of what you hear from the Democrats…this election comes down to a war-time decision. John Kerry may say he’s the right man to fix what’s wrong in Iraq, but the data just doesn’t support him.
I’ll be the first to admit that the polling data could be wrong. I’ve never put my complete faith in polling data, and I’m still not this time. However, the data does seem to suggest that Bush has a healthy enough lead to win re-election five weeks from today.
It’s still possible that John Kerry can gain some ground. The debates are coming and there’s a lot of time left for the numbers to go either way. Kerry’s not done yet. He may be a strong closer, but the President is no slouch, either. This sucker can go either way.
The numbers are just looking good for our side right now.
William Smith
ConservativeBlogger.com